Sally (Stroke): Chapter 1 - Rowing, life & suffering a stroke

Episode 2: Chapter 1 - Sally Callie - Recovery from a stroke on the operating table  (Stroke) - Rowing, life & suffering a stroke.

In this second episode, we meet Sally Callie,  a triple Olympian, a world record holder and an U23 world champion in the sport of rowing, who's also a mother, a teacher and a stroke survivor. Following the birth of Sally's second child in 2011 she experienced a seizure and upon returning to hospital discovered that she had a blood vessel deep within her brain which was ready to rupture. Sally needed to undergo brain surgery to remove the blood vessel and though this was successful, she awoke from the surgery to find that she could not move half of her body.

In this first chapter we meet Sally and hear about her life before her stroke and how she got into the sport of rowing. She describes the events leading to the stroke itself and her time in acute her immediately following it.

Transcripts and show notes are available for each episode on the podcast website: storiesofrecovery.buzzsprout.com

Shownotes:

• 10:20 - Sally's seizure was a result of an Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM) which needed to be surgically removed,
• ^12:41 - Work hard on your mindset "We can't choose what happens to us, but we can choose our response to it",
• ^13:35 - Use visualisation to picture yourself in a powerful, confident state to prepare yourself for difficult/scary situations (in Sally's case a 7 hour craniotomy with a 20% chance of stroke, paralysis, coma or death),
• 16:30 - Stroke can happen to anyone, at any age, in any health,
• ^19:15 - Use the initial 90 day period to push hard for all the improvement you can (Sally pretended that she was training for the London Olympics), and know that you WILL continue to recover after this time with dedicated effort,
• ^20:45 - Visualisation - the start of Sally's recovery. Visualise an activity which you are already very familiar with (using all of your senses),
• 22:36 - Sally was in hospital for two weeks before being moved to a public rehabilitation centre.

^Sally's main tips